A Question Of Justice

A very jolly afternoon with lots of friends around for high tea and Noi surpassing herself on the hospitality front. The only downside on the proceedings came in the form of a number of critical comments concerning my seniority in terms of years spent on the planet. I found all this unnecessarily ageist - and said so, pointing out that I now self-identified as a handsome and charismatic forty-year-old. People failed to take this at all seriously.

All you social justice warriors out there need to take up my cause, I reckon.

Something Lost

I'm very annoyed at myself. I contrived to waste forty minutes of my life this morning watching a supremely dumb video on YouTube about the 'downfall' of a famous 'influencer' from the early days of the Internet. I'd never heard of the young lady in question prior to watching the video and I learnt nothing of value to myself, or anyone else for that matter, in the excruciating trawl through her sad life.

I suppose I vaguely thought I was finding out something about an aspect of our culture that I'd previously been blind to, but really that wasn't the case. I'm well aware of the fact that a lot of young people are capable of behaving very badly indeed in public and that a few paradoxically get rewarded for this, with disastrous consequences for themselves and a fair number of the people around them. It's no great secret either that the substances often used to fuel such behaviour don't help, especially when there appear to be serious mental health issues involved.

The funny thing is that the video itself, though dismally parasitical in nature, feeding off the emptiness it documented, was really well put together in terms of its production values. Someone with a fair degree of talent had worked hard to create something that was fundamentally worthless, except in terms, I assume, of making money somehow. 

And there I was, watching the darn thing. Stupid or what!?

Something Gained

It's an odd sort of time of year. On holiday, but lots to do. Happily managing to find some time to do absolutely nothing though. Crashed out spectacularly after the Zuhor Prayer this afternoon. I suppose some might see it as two hours being lost, but it felt like time well spent to me.

A Bit Bothered

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, despite enjoying Matt Haig's The Midnight Library there was something about the novel, something I couldn't quite place, that bothered me. Now I've figured it out. It's the fact that his protagonist, Nora, is so gifted. In some of the various lives she is able to live, through the various volumes of possibility offered in the titular library, she is able to develop her talents for music and swimming and academic philosophy. Now it's true that she doesn't achieve great things in all the many lives she inhabits, but for a presumably Everyman (Everywoman? Everyperson?) character it's not bad going to win an Olympic medal and become an internationally famous rock star in just a couple of them. 

I can see a point being made here about the possibilities involved in making full use of our talents, but this all seems more than a bit heavy-handed to me. And it conflicts with the celebration of simple ordinariness that lies at the heart of the story. Of course, that may be the point but for this reader it doesn't quite work.

I suppose that's the problem with any 'thesis-novel'. Once you interrogate the premises involved the work will start to wobble, and just to have a thesis is to invite interrogation.

Still think it's a good read though.

Happy News

It seems that my sister Maureen is doing pretty well these days, according to the latest from my niece Cheryl back in the UK. I really should write more often for updates but I tend to operate on the foolishly timid principle that no news is good news. So actually confirming today that all really is well came as a bit of a relief. Maureen's short term memory is gone, something we've known for some time, but it sounds like she's happy with what life gives her and particularly enjoys the visits of grand-daughter Imogen each week when they can do a bit of drawing together.

The longed-for calm after the storm.

Seeing Red

This is weird. If anyone had ever told me that my all-time favourite version of Crimso's Red would not actually feature KC themselves I would never have come close to believing them. But I reckon the one that features on the latest series of Daryl's House fits the bill. It's the two keyboards that do it for me, especially the honky-tonk stylings of Mr Hall himself. And to think the band were playing the piece for the first time ever - with its steely-eyed progenitor along with them. Talk about nerve; talk about edge.

Great to see the Frippster clearly having the time of his life, by the way. 

Literature As Therapy

Finished Matt Haig's eminently readable The Midnight Library this afternoon. I don't think I've read such an avowedly therapeutic novel before. Not sure I quite approve of the potential genre, if this turns out to be the beginning of a new school of fiction, but I approve of Mr Haig's inventiveness and his soundness of heart. I can understand why so many readers love the book and I suspect it'll do a lot of good in the world.

Am still trying to figure out what exactly is bothering me about the novel, but something is, despite my admiration for what the writer has achieved.

Staying On Message

One of the most subtly irritating aspects of modernity is the whole business of communications in the context of work. Who was it, I'd like to know, who thought it would be a good idea to generate numerous platforms for sending messages as to what suddenly needs to be done or undone or might be done in the event that somebody else in the chain thinks it would be a good idea to do it? 

When I started teaching in the last century most messages were conveyed by word of mouth (supremely efficient) or written down on pieces of paper and delivered well in advance of whatever 'events' were in the offing. We managed to get lots of things done - pretty much all the stuff that schools do now - and, on the whole, things remained calm, even when busy, because people knew they needed to make their messages clear and avoid last minute changes.

These days even what might appear to be a firm date for something turns out to be speculative and pretty much everything seems open to renegotiation until it's actually happening (or not.) I'm sure someone, somewhere is going to tell me that this is all mysteriously efficient and boosts productivity (a word that should be banned from serious educational discourse, methinks.) I intend to avoid that person.

Perfection

Have discovered the perfect music for the gym. I've never quite been able to make up my mind about Miles's 80's albums, and Tutu is a case in point. I should like it, and sort of do, but the production sort of drives me crazy. I can't unhear the drum machines. On the other hand, Miles is Miles and weaves his way through the funky aural wash in typically unexpected and expressive style.

But in the gym it doesn't matter. The funk drives you along on the elliptical trainer and the brilliant variations keep the brain alive and alert and distracted from suffering.

Catch It While You Can

One of the unexpected fascinations of reading the somewhat academic tome A History of Russian Theatre has been finding out about famous Russian actors of the nineteenth century whose work was obviously of the highest order in creative terms yet now is lost for us forever, except for very general reports of what their performances were actually like. It's strange to think that despite being reasonably interested in the world of theatre in general I'd never heard of the likes of Martynov and Shchepkin, two giants of the Russian theatrical world around about the 1830s.

In some ways, though, the very loss of their work adds a kind of value to it. From a distance we can catch echoes of how meaningful it was for their enraptured audiences, and I suppose this is still true of theatre today. When I think about my life-time of theatre-going I realise that very little of what I've experienced would have been captured on film - and there's a strange sense in which even the best films of theatrical performances can't ever quite completely capture the reality of the moment.

Perhaps, at some deep level we don't really want to capture it. Part of the magic is the fact we know it happened as a gift in time, but we never expected or needed the gift to last.

Fulfilling Expectations

Was taken completely by surprise by the ending of Flow My Tears in a sort of predictable manner. Philip K Dick is just so good at coming at you from unexpected directions. 

Just started reading Matt Haig's The Midnight Library about which I've heard lots and lots of good things. Judging from the opening pages they are all true. 

Honestly, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that generally people don't read all that much. Astonishing to consider how much they are missing.

A Couple Of Certainties

Am now quite certain that I've never read Philip K Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said before, and even more certain that I'm on a roll reading it now. It's utterly disorienting in the best possible way. I'm guessing, with a quarter of the novel to go, that the writer is playing tricks with time in relation to his protagonist's confounding dilemma of no longer existing except in brief, uncanny glimpses of his former famous self. But in a way I don't care as to what might be actually taking place - it's the sublimely crazy reality of impossible conversations with generally pretty crazy people that makes it all so gripping.

I've also realised, after scanning the list of Dick's works, dated by year of publication, that the publishers handily provide that I definitely haven't read anything after 1981's Valis. Which means I've got one heck of a fictive good time ahead of me once I get my hands and eyes on the later novels.

Attending The Wake

Have been re-thinking the shape of my project for reading Joyce's Finnegans Wake in retirement. After reading a piece in the Graun about a reading club dedicated to the great epic of the night it occurred to me, after sharing the article with Boon, who assumed I was suggesting starting something of the same myself, that a version of the club based in this Far Place (Singapore At The Wake) would be fun but unlikely to attract more than two members - myself and a very reluctant Mr Boon. But what was doable would be a quick, essentially largely uncomprehending read-through of the Wake prior to retirement and then begin the great read-through over a span of 29 years, posting on-line about it, and sort of dragging in anyone who got interested to critique the posts, as well as reading the book.

All of this sounds a bit crazy, but then so does the novel, of course.

(By the way, if there are any enthusiasts out there who think Singapore At The Wake has legs, do let me know. But I'm not thinking of making this work on Zoom, as Boon was sort of suggesting, as I can't imagine debating/interpreting/chanting/enjoying the text in any fewer than three dimensions.)

Keeping Busy

The last day of term turned out to be quite a busy one. Ironically things will get even busier when I start some IB marking for the November papers on Sunday and find myself in work everyday next week for various activities, including a major admin task involving financing which is the traditional lowlight of my year. But don't worry, I get to rest tomorrow by pretending I don't have all that much to do.

Missing Out

So here's the thing. I'm sure you'll agree, Gentle Reader, that the curry puffs above look a bit tasty. And I can assure you they were since a number of my colleagues this morning emphasised to me that this was the case. You may have already guessed that they were cooked by Noi - for some of our staff involved in a meeting this morning to enjoy. The problem is, however, that yours truly never got a sniff. Having carried them across and put them on the table with a number of other goodies provided for the pot luck, I needed to talk to a couple of people about some pressing matters. Less than twenty minutes later I proceeded to said table intending to grab a puff to scoff, selflessly also meaning to grab one for Saravanan, only to find the greedy gannets had eaten every single one!!

There is no justice in this world. Fortunately, the Missus is intending to make some more for the last day of term. And I will get my share, eventually!!!

Something Forgotten

I read a lot of science fiction as a young teenager. All of it from the local library, and most of it in those old yellow-jacketed Gollancz editions. I'm not sure I finished everything I started and certainly struggled with one or two books at the level of simple understanding. And for some strange reason I know I thought of sci-fi as pretty lower-class sort of reading, on the same level as the detective stories Mum loved so much. What a petty little snob I was!

I mention all this in connection with a minor crisis in my reading yesterday with regard to Philip K Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. As I pointed out a couple of days back, my reading has got more than a little undisciplined lately, yet I didn't have a novel on the go and was feeling the lack. The result was an even more complete breakdown in discipline as I took myself off to the library at work determined to grab some reasonably short work of fiction to add to my current reading - that work turning out to be the one referenced earlier in the paragraph.

Within thirty minutes of leaving the library with the book in my hand I'd read Chapter 1 and was enthralled. Which is what precipitated the crisis, sort of. It suddenly occurred to me that I might have already read the novel, despite the fact that it appeared entirely new to me, since I thought I had a couple of the lovely Library of America editions of Dick's works from the 60's and 70's and I'd read these within the last five years or so. I was horrified by the idea that I might have managed to so completely forget an entire book in such a short period. A 'senior moment' on an epic scale. Hurriedly I checked on-line at the LOA website and realised that Flow My Tears did indeed appear in one of the collections I thought I owned. I glumly found myself considering rushing to my neurologist at NUH and asking to take the test for dementia suggested earlier this year.

Then it further occurred to me that it might be a good idea to check just how many of the LOA editions related to Dick were actually on my shelves. It turned out that I possessed a solitary volume, and it didn't have the novel in it. I'm not sure why I thought I owned two volumes, but it didn't seem quite so bad losing count of editions I own as opposed to forgetting reading an entire book. Plus I could now continue my reading very happily indeed, enjoying something quite new.

Except, going back to what I said at the beginning, I can't help but wonder if I actually have read the book before, back in the dark ages of my misspent youth. And, I really should add that I'm baffled as to why I don't own all three of the LOA collections available.

Further Education

Odd day on the health front. Slept very well last night after an excellent dinner - the Missus having magicked up an extremely tasty Hong Kong Mee with lots of vegetables. Despite these good omens I felt mildly off all morning, as if about to develop an iffy tummy which never quite manifested itself. We took ourselves off in the afternoon to Jem and had an excellent cuppa (coffee, in my case) and an entirely fulfilling scone, but still I felt on the edge of needing to make a run for the nearest rest room without ever actually having to do so.

As a result of all this I went to the gym after the Maghrib Prayer with a distinct sense of wariness. And here's the funny thing. I'd done 32 minutes on the elliptical trainer when I felt the kind of sweatiness you really don't want to feel on the half hour mark and just knew I had nothing left. So I dialed down the pace, by quite a rate of knots initially - and surprised myself by adding another 23 minutes. But I didn't even look at the weights afterwards.

The lesson, as ever, is to listen to what your body tells you. But don't necessarily believe all it says. 

An Early Start

The Christmas decorations have gone up at the Fairprice supermarket at Clementi Mall.

Arrrrrgggghhhhh.

(Just saying.)

A Bit More Diversity

In the interests of full disclosure I thought I'd follow-up yesterday's post on my current reading with something related to my current listening. This is what made it to the turntable in our household over the weekend, in the order the CDs got played in: Radiohead - In Rainbows; RVW - Sancta Civitas; Radiohead - Kid A; Richard Hawley - Coles Corner; King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King.

It's not a lot, is it? But that can be accounted for the fact that these days I rarely, if ever, play music as 'background'. I can't work along to it, and I can't read to it. I now need to give whatever I'm listening to my full, undivided attention. Multi-tasking is not my thing. Indeed, I strongly suspect it can't really be done and dilutes one's experience of whatever 'tasks' are involved - except listening to YouTube talks when shaving, and Stevie Wonder et al when working out.

Interestingly, at least from my perspective, today was the first time I really 'got' Kid A from start to finish, enjoying the actual programming of the CD. It's taken some 20 years to get there, but nice to eventually arrive. Similarly today was the first time ever I really tuned in to the dynamics of the improv section of Moonchild on ITCOTCK. That's taken more than 50 years to manage, though for many years I skipped the section through what I thought was judicious fast-forwarding. What was I thinking!!

A Bit Of Diversity

My reading has become a bit undisciplined of late. For a long time I'm been restricting myself in broad terms to one main book, usually a novel, and poetry on the side in the form of a cover to cover reading of a chunky collected from someone or other. There have been, of course, embellishments here and there, like an extra work of non-fiction that proved irresistible, or a thinnish poetry collection. Oh, and there's been stuff I've had to read for work, but that doesn't count.

But of late my discipline has really broken down such that I'm now reading no fewer than four tomes, with not one being a novel, meaning that a bit of fiction will inevitably be added, probably in the week ahead. Must say, I'm struck by the oddness of the list of four, a sign of a happily eclectic mind, from one point of view, or someone who's just very peculiar from another. So here it is, not in any order of merit: Robert Lowell's Collected Poems; A Treasury of Hadith - A Commentary on Nawawi's Selection of Forty Prophetic Traditions by Ibn Daqiq al'Id; A History of Russian Theatre, edited by Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky; and Gary Larson's The Pre-History of The Far Side - A 10th Anniversary Exhibit.

As you might guess, only the last one of these makes me laugh, but it does so immoderately, so there's some balance there, I suppose.

Good News

Decided that the news has been so unrelentingly depressing lately (not to mention the footy results) that I had to go looking for feel-good stories. Found a couple in The Graun that made me smile.

The headline Species named after David Attenborough believed extinct rediscovered already sounded pretty wonderful, and the fact that said species happen to be next door in Indonesia added to the piquancy of the tale. The lovely photo of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna further added to the cheerfulness of the piece.

But to my surprise I cracked open an even bigger grin in relation to a brilliant article from the Experience series: Stevie Wonder secretly played on my band's single. Good grief, imagine not just meeting the great man but having him play harmonica on your stuff! It made me wonder what I might say if I ever encountered him. Probably something completely stupid like: Mr Wonder you've been the soundtrack to a lot of my life and I play your albums when I go to the gym and I am just not worthy. By the way, I found the Feelabeelia track featured very tasty in itself - and not just because of Stevie on the mouth harp.

Just A Suggestion

When we were in the Fairprice supermarket at Clementi Mall this afternoon the Missus suggested buying some jacuzzies to munch on. I found this both intriguing and faintly horrifying in roughly equal proportions. It turned out that she was actually thinking of buying a zucchini, some sort of vegetable I believe. Bit disappointing in the end, though I'm sure she'll do something spectacularly delicious with the veggie in question.

Feeling Sad

I found reading the final sections of Atwood's Dearly a bit tricky. The poems were wonderful and in almost every respect easy to read. But the subject matter was painful. The sequence relating to climate change was devastating, rightly so. And those on the loss of her husband (I'm guessing that was the background) similarly dark. Not without some vague sense of hope, I think. But dark.

A bit like the final scene of Lear, I suppose. The truth hurts, but it's all we've got, finally.

Now And Now

Just to add something to what I was writing yesterday regarding the video for Now And Then and its relevance to the notion of time and staying young forever. Underlying the beautifully blended shots of the younger Beatles and their later selves is the inescapable truth that we don't stay forever young but, at one and the same time, our younger selves, for better or worse, remain essential to what we become. I suppose that sounds more than a bit pretentiously deep, but the film and song convey the notion in an appropriate spirit of playfulness.

There's a moment when we see for the first time the elderly (80+) Ringo singing back-up to the Lennon vocal, along with Macca, and he's completely, delightfully, lost in the moment. And that's immediately followed by a black and white shot of John & George, circa 1964 at a guess, laughing as they harmonise playing live. We could be back in the middle 60s with all of them, or earlier. We're not very good at time, are we? We sort of float through it, out of our depth. But in those moments when we lose ourselves in the joy of it all we make a kind of sense and learn something of what we are here to do with the time we are mercifully given. 

Then And Now

I wasn't in any great hurry to hear the 'latest' Beatles' single, Now And Then, thinking it was likely to be mediocre late-Lennon with a distinct corporate dad-rock flavour, what with the Peter Jackson video and all. An event that is/was just that - a kind of vacuous PR-driven week or so of a special event that isn't/wasn't all that special.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The song is gorgeous. Not among the genuinely great Beatles' songs, but a really good one. I know this because I've now listened to it four times and two segments have been on a lovely warm endless ear-wormy loop in my mind since the third listen. And the video is perfection. Somebody decided to go easy on the sentiment and let the simple good humour of the four lovable mop-heads from Merseyside do the job, and got it absolutely right. That's the thing about John, Paul, George and Ringo. They weren't just rock gods. They were always four ordinary (but brilliant) lads from the streets of Liverpool and everyone sort of knew that all along, even when they behaved badly, as lads often do, or said daft things, as lads always do.

And the whole package (horrible word, but let it pass for once) manages to say wise and telling things about time and aging and staying forever young.

Towards The Light

Played RVW's Dona Nobis Pacem this afternoon as therapy. Kept reminding myself that as the Maestro wrote this between the wars (around a century ago now) the idea of peace in Europe must have seemed absurd. Yet even by my long-ago boyhood that peace had emphatically arrived. To think of conflict as the norm in human affairs is a failure of imagination.

Of course, it helps that the music is of itself stunningly beautiful. A living, breathing reminder of what the imagination is for.

On Top

It occurred to me today that I've not read all that widely in the work of Margaret Atwood, four novels, a few essays and occasional poems in anthologies and set for exams as 'unseens', but everything I've read has been excellent. This reflection was brought on by the fact I'm reading her latest book of poems, entitled Dearly, and that it's proving expectedly excellent. I received it as a gift from a student for Teachers' Day and dipped into its pages immediately, instantly unearthing a couple of gems. Now I'm going cover to cover and, to be honest, it's impressing me a lot more than Robert Lowell's 1961 collection Imitations, which I've just struggled to the end of in the Collected.

I suspect I'd feel a lot more at home in an Atwood Collected or Selected.

Learning A Lesson

Over the last four weeks I've been making a habit of finishing my stint on the elliptical trainer with a bit of a sprint over the last three minutes or thereabouts. It's a way of making sure I've genuinely pushed myself and not settled into a comfortable routine.

The odd thing is how unpredictable the various batches of last few minutes have proved. There are occasions when I know I have the reserves to really go for it, and there are times when I've known within 30 seconds that I had nothing left to push with. I thought this evening that I was going to enjoy a feeling of strength in reserve as I hit the 52 minute mark only to discover there was nothing there. I stepped off the machine 3 mediocre minutes later all a-tremble, knowing I had come close to throwing-up territory.

So here I am now, royally aching, happy to have something done, but puzzled as to why it had to be so difficult. I suppose I'm learning something; I just don't know what that something is.

Words Of Wisdom

Minor truth: A half-warm cup of tea - when you expect something nice & hot - is a deep disappointment. 

Major truth: But a deeply hot cuppa when you're feeling less than tickety-boo sets the world to rights.

(Actually I scrawled the above in a notebook some time back, early in 2022, and happened to read it again today. Have no idea of the particular context but was struck by my own insight. No one can accuse me of not knowing a thing or two worth knowing.)  

In The Dark

As I made brief reference to yesterday, I'm sort of trying to avoid what's in the news, but at the same time feel compelled to get some sense of what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank. The fact that what's happening isn't good and isn't likely to result in any kind of positive outcome relates to my desire to avoid learning too much. But learning of the facts in themselves is a kind of moral compulsion.

I suppose something similar is true in relation to learning what took place at the heart of government in the UK in the early months of the pandemic. Except that following the covid inquiry feels akin to watching farce, in contrast to the utter tragedy of events in Israel. But then I recall the staggering death toll brought about by the staggering ineptitude of Johnson's government, and the darkness descends.